


Patterns

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Comment Fic 2016 [52]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, blink and you miss it crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 06:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7833358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, Rodney McKay, He begins to see a pattern in his frequent breakups and subsequent commiserating beers on the pier with John."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Patterns

“ - And I swear, it really wasn’t my fault this time,” Rodney said. He and John were on the pier again, sharing beer and mourning yet another of Rodney’s failed relationships. “We ‘encountered local resistance’ and were stuck in an alien jail cell with alien pigs for a week. I didn’t deliberately miss our two-month anniversary. And who celebrates two-month anniversaries anyway? Besides teenagers.”  
  
“Apparently really, really sentimental botanists.” John sipped from his beer bottle.  
  
Rodney admired how calm he was. John really was a nice guy, drinking beer on the pier with him after every break up. They’d been pretty damn frequent as of late, come to think of it.  
  
“Maybe you should just avoid botanists,” John said.  
  
Rodney blinked. “What? Why? The only botanist I ever dated was -”  
  
“Katie Brown.”  
  
“Jennifer’s not a botanist.”  
  
“And then Asuka Murase, and David Parrish -”  
  
“Hey, Parrish was easy pickings after Lorne dumped him for that twinky new engineer, what’s-his-face, Neilson.”  
  
John huffed. “Maybe you shouldn’t be thinking of your future partners as ‘easy pickings’.”  
  
Rodney nudged John’s shoulders with his. “Oh come on, you remember how weepy and sad Parrish was after Lorne broke his fragile little heart. Once you got past the tears, though, the sex was incredible. I can see why Lorne put up with the tears as long as he did -”  
  
“Let’s not forget Qatra Raberba.”  
  
“Okay, I didn’t realize he was a botanist at first, all right? He plays the violin.” Rodney waggled his fingers in an attempt to demonstrate how useful a violinist’s dexterity was but mostly looked like he was incapable of snapping his fingers. Maybe he needed more beer. How many beers had he drunk?  
  
John fixed Rodney with an unimpressed look.  
  
Rodney sighed. “You’re supposed to be sympathetic, not judgmental.”  
  
“I am sympathetic,” John said gently. “You’re right. She shouldn’t have dumped you. It really wasn’t your fault you missed your bi-lunar anniversary or whatever the kids are calling it these days. But I’m seeing a pattern here, and it’s botanists. They’re bad news. Plus every time you break one’s heart you get cut off of the coffee supply for a week and you’re a monster to everyone in physics and engineering.”  
  
Rodney stared at his empty bottle. “You’re right. I’m done with botanists. Thanks, John.”  
  
A month later, Rodney was back on the pier with John, bottles of unopened Molson’s between them, unhappy.  
  
“So apparently I’m not cut out for dating Marines either.”  
  
“As much as you only failed to date one Marine, I’m not going to recommend you try the rest of the battalion, no,” John said. He opened a bottle and handed it to Rodney, then opened one for himself.  
  
“Here’s the thing,” Rodney said, taking a sip, “I was super attentive. I didn’t miss a single date. I brought him gifts.”  
  
“Marines do like gifts that explode,” John said, “just, you know, not uncontrollably.”  
  
“I told him it was a prototype.” Rodney pouted into his beer. “Here’s the thing - I’m good in bed. Great in bed, even. No one ever complains about how I am in bed.”  
  
“Good for you,” John muttered.  
  
Rodney eyed him. “Has anyone ever complained about you in bed?”  
  
“I’m not as much of a Kirk as you think.” John took a deep pull of his beer.  
  
“Really, though, I totally go to that weird yoga class Lorne teaches that no one wants to admit they go to, so I’m damn flexible, and also it is really relaxing. I have great hands - okay, not violinist hands, but pianist hands all the same - and no gag reflex and I can hold my breath for a really long time -”  
  
John choked. “Whoa, Rodney, TMI!”  
  
“I’m just saying,” Rodney said. “I don’t get what I’m doing wrong. Maybe I should try Air Force officers?”  
  
The look John cast him was inscrutable. “Maybe you should.”  
  
Rodney eyed him, but he made no protest, so Rodney said, “All right, I will.”

All week, as Rodney went to command meetings and staff meetings and mission briefings and mission proposal briefings, he studied the officers and wondered. Lorne was off the table, because he was still dating his twinky little engineer, but if he came up single sometime soon, Rodney had heard good things about him. Rodney suspected that beneath her gruff exterior, Teldy might be a good time. But every time Rodney forecast the trajectory of his relationships with any of the officers, he saw himself ending up in the same place, on the pier with John and beer.  
  
The pier.  
  
With John.  
  
And beer.  
  
“Are you okay?” John asked. “It’s only been a week. I didn’t hear a whisper about you and any of the officers. The only person immune to scuttlebutt like that is...did you have a threesome with Lorne and Neilson?”  
  
Rodney shook his head. “No. Contrary to popular belief, I’m not a homewrecker.”  
  
“Who called you a homewrecker?”  
  
“Apparently Dr. Murase has a very scary boyfriend back on Earth.” Rodney opened a beer bottle and handed it to John. “I’m fine.”  
  
“Then we’re here because…?”  
  
“Because I realized I was approaching the whole problem incorrectly,” Rodney said. “I wasn’t looking at all of the data points, so naturally the patterns I was seeing and the conclusions I was drawing were erroneous.”  
  
“Oh? And what pattern have you discovered instead? Why is the great Rodney McKay repeatedly failing at relationships?”  
  
“Because,” Rodney said, “none of them were with you.”  
  
John went still.  
  
“It’s you. It’s always been you. When I’m in danger, you rescue me. When I’m sad, you bring me beer and cheer me up.”  
  
“So what you’re saying is…?”  
  
“I should have been dating you all along,” Rodney said, leaned in, and kissed John.  
  
John kissed him back.  
  
There was a horrible moment when they almost fell off the end of the pier when Rodney tried to climb onto John’s lap, but they righted themselves long enough to collect their beer and go back to John’s quarters, which were closest.  
  
After that, beer on the pier was a date, not mourning, and Rodney was more than okay with that.


End file.
